Wednesday, December 31, 2014

"Scotbom -Evidence and the Lockerbie Investigation" by (former FBI Special Agent) Richard A.Marquise

“Some
speculated the charges against the pair were not credible and the only reason
the Libyans had been blamed for the Lockerbie bombing was because it was
politically expedient to do so.
Hendersonand I had talked many times about what public speculation
would be when once again, the eyes of the world focused upon Gaddafi and
Libya. We knew we had to get it right
because even if the defendants were never surrendered for trial, some would
believe the charges were trumped up just to point the finger at Gaddafi and
away from others. - our focus had shifted to Libya driven entirely by the
physical evidence found in the fields around Lockerbie.”

Richard Marquise "Scotbom"

Introduction:

1

. Tim Weiner’s book “Enemies – A History of the FBI”,
contains Weiner's account of how the FBI’s
Richard Marquise “solved” the Lockerbie case by turning “intelligence” into
“evidence” through the use of the Libyan defector Majid Giaka as a "golden informant". Weiner intriguingly quoted Marquise that “we brought MI5 to Washington.” BBC News of the 22/12/2014 stated the Scottish Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland was in Washington to discuss the (purported) ongoing joint investigation into the Lockerbie bombing. (Obviously bearing no grudge for the Giaka fiasco!) In view of this Father Christmas brought me a copy of Richard Marquise’s
account of the original FBI Lockerbie investigation “Scotbom:
Evidence and the Lockerbie Investigation”.

2. I found "Scotbom" a much more interesting and honest account than I
expected and very readable although it has much less to do with evidence than the politics of the Lockerbie investigation. While I
understand why Mr Megrahi was framed for the Lockerbie bombing,
in loco parentis Mu'ammar Gaddafi, and the real culprits exonerated, I previously
had some sympathy for Mr Marquise’s predicament in being under pressure not
only to get a result, but a particular
result. However I had not been aware of the enthusiasm
with which he embraced a fraudulent version of events, put up Majid Giaka as a
credible witness, and like his Scottish counterparts ignored compelling
evidence that would have led to a true solution of the crime.

3. "Scotbom”
contained many interesting revelations particularly in relation to the
chronology of the very late emergence of the “evidence” of Majid Giaka and in Marquise’s repeated
statements that from the early summer of 1991 there was a deadline of
mid-November 1991 imposed for indictments to be brought irrespective of the
state of the investigation.

4. This and
other material in the book tended to confirm my view that the object of the
indictment was not a trial at all but was part of a sophisticated plan to
convert unilateral US sanctions against Libya into UN sanctions. I suspect this November (1991) deadline was determined in
relation to a chronology focused on changes to the UN Security Council that were to take effect from the 1st
January 1992 when the UK would become Chairman of the SC and the radical states of Cuba and
Yemen, friends of Libya and opponents of the West, lost their seats on the
Security Council.

5. What was most intriguing in "Scotbom" was the author's revelations of the actuality of a relationship between the investigators (FBI and the Scottish Police) and the British Secret Service (MI5).

"Sally Vincent"

6. As a
prelude one early anecdote in the book concerned a Pan Am stewardess “Sally Vincent” some of whose
personal effects were apparently found in the wreckage at Tundergarth. (Why this was Marquise did not explain). At the time of the Lockerbie disaster “Sally Vincent” was in Moscow
visiting her boyfriend the son of a diplomat at the Syrian Embassy. The FBI received assistance from the Soviet
authorities in placing her under surveillance.
Marquise noted that the FBI had received co-operation from the KGB in a country which had always been regarded by the FBI as “the enemy” in its central (and original role) of overseeing national security. “Sally
Vincent” was eliminated from any involvement in the bombing. (As the investigation was fundamentally flawed in other respects the "elimination" of any suspect may in itself be suspect.)

7.

While the FBI availed themselves of the assistance of
the KGB in investigating “Sally Vincent” Marquise wrote (page
114) “there was no way anyone in the
United States or Scotland would authorise any investigator to travel to Libya”
but conceded “The Libyans did say they would allow Fhimah and
Megrahi to be interviewed.” Rather
than recording a statement committing
the suspects to a particular version of events the prosecution case relied on (former CIA officer) Pierre Salinger’s filmed interview of Megrahi to prove his denial of
being in Malta on the 20-21/12/88. (In
1999 the Scottish SIO did conduct investigations in Libya with significant
results relating to Megrahi’s “coded” passport.)

8. (Central to what actually transpired, prior to the
arrival of flight 103A from Frankfurt, baggage handler Peter Bedford had found
that someone had placed two further suitcases, one a brown Samsonite, within
luggage container AVE4041. According to
Bedford Alert Security Officer Sulaksh Kamboj told him he had placed the bags
in the container. Kamboj denied to the
Police that he had said such a thing. (This crucial incident was essentially ignored and dismissed as irrelevant by SIO John Orr and ignored by Marquise.)

9. At about 1720hrs on the 21/12/88 Kamboj actually went on board “The Maid of the Seas” while it was being prepared for take-off
to give a Christmas present to a Pan Am stewardess he knew as Sally Strong. Ms Strong however was not on the
flight. Kamboj did take the
opportunity to wish the cabin crew a Merry Christmas. (The crew of course were all dead within two
hours.) Was “Sally Vincent” Sally Stone?

Marquise
and the Evidence of a Heathrow Origin:

10. While the official version of events is that the
primary suitcase was introduced (by unknown means) at Luqa Airport on the
morning of the 21/12/88 Mr Marquise has very little to say about Heathrow
although his comments are telling in view of his claim to have conducted a "thorough, complete and impartial investigation."

11. Mr Marquise’s book makes no mention at all of Bedford
and Kamboj or the mysterious appearance of a brown Samsonite within container
AVE4041. He merely wrote (page 209) “The
Heathrow employees were responsible for the loading of Pan Am flight 103 to the United States. They spoke of the build-up where several
bags had come in earlier in the day for the flight and they had placed
approximately eight to ten bags on the first layer of bags in the container,
AVE4041. These bags had come from other
flights into London. The bag (sic) was then filled with
luggage from the Frankfurt flight but the container did not hold them all.”

12. Mr Marquise is extremely vague about the number of
Interline bags in total and says nothing about the ownership of the Interline bags that
were in AVE4041 He claimed (page 36)
that “16 online passengers checked in
16 bags”. (They may have but two of these bags
belonging to Daniel O’Connor never made it onto PA103.)

13. He states that “interviews with the baggage handlers who
loaded AVE 4041 PA on December 21 indicated there were between five and nine
bags which had been sent to London from other flights before he began loading
flights from the Frankfurt flight.” (Above at para.11 it is "eight to ten bags"!) At
page 32 he notes that the Camp Zeist Judgement conceded “it was conceivable a rogue bag could have
been placed into the baggage system at Heathrow” but claimed that “no evidence had been introduced to substantiate that claim”.

14. In fact a great deal of evidence had been introduced
to substantiate that claim which Their Lordships dismissed by speculating that
the brown Samsonite seen by Bedford had been moved “out of harm’s way to
some far corner of the container.” Of course if it had been moved then logically
it should have been recovered and linked to a specific Interline
passenger. It never was and the only
Brown Samsonite recovered were the fragments of the primary suitcase.

15. There was real, compelling indeed irrefutable evidence the "bomb" suitcase had been
introduced at Heathrow and what Marquise’s described as a “thorough, complete and impartial
investigation” (page 152) was nothing of the kind.

The CIA,
“Intelligence” and Vincent Cannistraro

16. One of Marquise’s central themes is his attempt, in
which he both succeeded and failed, to turn “intelligence” into "evidence”.
(His evidence convinced a US Grand Jury but was thrown out at Camp Zeist. Perhaps it was only convincing the Grand Jury that mattered.) “We hoped that, where the evidence and intelligence converged,
we would find our solution.” (page 87).

17. Curiously Marquise repeatedly complains that the CIA’s intelligence pointed to Iran/PFLP-GC
as the perpetrators (contrary to the “evidence”.) As late as the 18th
May 1991 “The CIA held to the theory that the attack was revenge for the
American shoot-down of the Iran airbus over the Persian Gulf.” (page 114).

18. (

One might have imagined the CIA would have been 100%
behind the creation of the “Libyan solution” in view of their thirty year
campaign to bring about regime change in Libya.)

19. At page 60 Marquise
writes of how in Nov 1990 (weeks before Operation Desert Storm) “I
met with representatives of the British Secret Service (MI5) with whom we had
had so many problems during the previous two years”.

20. Marquise is particularly scathing of Vincent
Cannistraro “a retired CIA
agent had told the media (in November 1990 on the eve of Operation
Desert Storm) the focus of the Lockerbie investigation was no longer on Palestinians, Syrians or Iranians but was on Libya because of evidence which had been
recovered at Lockerbie”. And where did Cannistraro get his information from? Well according to Marquise he sat in on a couple of meetings with the FBI!

21.

Cannistraro (a bureaucrat and propagandist occasionally described as having led the CIA's Lockerbie investigation) had previously been tasked to come up with schemes
(some crackpot) to harass the Libyan regime
and perhaps understood better than Marquise the real objective of the Lockerbie investigation. Marquise later discusses the issue of
“rendition”, arresting one or more of the Libyan suspects outside Libya. Cannistraro’s intervention had put Libya on
notice it was under investigation, (which may have been his intention!), as an
actual trial may have been the last thing the West wanted.

Marwan
Khreesat

22. The
FBI’s involvement in the case centered on two areas. Firstly through the CIA they obtained an
interview with PFLP-GC bomb-maker, mass-murderer and CIA "asset" Marwan Khreesat in November 1989 in Jordan from which the Scottish Police (who had regarded Khreesat as their No.1 suspect) were excluded. (Khreesat was under the protection of the
Jordanian Intelligence Services allies of the CIA.) Tom Thurman was one of the two FBI agents who interviewed him.

23. With the forensic evidence, notably the MST-13
timer and the evidence the bomb was contained within a Toshiba SF-16 twin
speaker radio evidence-cassette Khreesat
was "eliminated" as a suspect in the case.
Of interest Khreesat explained ("Scotbom" page 56)
“that he could not use this
type of radio (the twin-speaker) because it would only hold about 100 grams of explosives after he
inserted all the components he needed for an altimeter bomb.” (Alan Feraday demonstrated it was feasible or possible to build a bomb incorporating a MEBO timer inside a twin speaker model but bomb-making expert Khreesat favoured the roomier single speaker.)

24. As pointed out in my article “Hear
no Evil, Se no Evil, Speak no Evil” the evidence the IED was actually contained within a
twin-speaker SF-16 radio-cassette recorder was dubious in the extreme. (At page
54 Marquise had describes this owner’s manual for the twin-speaker SF-16 model as being “printed in Arabic”, proving its origin within the Arab world without mentioning the instructions are also printed in English, Spanish and Chinese!)

25. The Police's first photograph of the “Horton Manual” (dated 12th May
1989) was omitted from the RARDE photographic report and the photgraphs depicting “The
Horton Manual” as two almost intact pages of an instruction manual
for a twin-speaker SF-16 radio cassette player were taken three days later and
are of dubious authenticity, although they duped the SCCRC. ﻿

26. Secondly one of the selection of photographs at
the beginning of Mr Marquise's book is the crucial photgraph 117 of the RARDE
photographic report. This photograph not only depicts the MEBO timer
fragment (PT35(b)) but also exhibit PT/2 (PT/35(d)) a tiny clump of compressed
paper supposedly part of the SF-16 manual and supposedly from the same source
as what is claimed to be the “Horton Manual”. This
photogaph was taken ten days after RARDE
scientist Dr. Thomas Hayes supposedly sketched the five constituent sheets of
PT/2 on page 51 of his notes. Of
course if PT/2 and the “Horton Manual” were faked then there is no
credible evidence the MEBO fragment PT
35(b) was genuine and actually found within the piece of grey Slalom shirt.

In short while the interview of Marwan Khreesat and
the RARDE forensic report (together with Their Lordships claim,
contradicted by the death of a German technician, that Khreesat's devices were harmless) supposedly
eliminated Khreesat as the bomb-maker,
CIA “asset” Khreesat remains the most credible suspect to have been the
bomb-maker which may explain why the FBI, CIA & RARDE bent over backwards
to clear him. If Khreesat was the bomb-maker this would indicate official foreknowledge of the bombing.

28.

In view of Marquise's revelation that the
simultaneous US and Scotttish indictments of the 14th November 1991
were made in advance of RARDE (and the Police) submitting
their final report Marquise makes what may be the most astonishing revelation
at page 107 of his book (although his narrative is somewhat unclear). He describes how (circa 29th April
1991) he, Stuart Henderson and some Swiss officials flew from Scotland to
Heathrow then took a train to RARDE at Fort Halstead Kent where they
met Alan Feraday and an associate Maurice Marshall (but not Dr Hayes). Marquise continued -

“The Swiss
were convinced. This was important:
after all it was the purpose of the trip.
As we headed for downtown London and a meeting with the BSS (MI5) the
day seemed bright even though it was a typical British spring day, cool and rainy. Feraday and Hayes, who had been involved in
the forensic examinations earlier in the investigation, said they were 100 per
cent certain of the accuracy of what they had examined. This was helpful even though the written
report was months from completion.”

29. Is Mr Marquise referring to some earlier claim of Mr Feraday and Dr Hayes or is he saying that Hayes and Feraday actually
attended this meeting at the headquarters of the British Secret Service?

MI5 Stella Rimington & Elizabeth Manningham-Buller:

30. In the 1994 Dimbleby Lecture -"Security and Democracy - is
there a Conflict?" -
MI5 Director-General Stellla
Rimington claimed “The
service played a major part in the investigation into the bombing of Pan Am 103
over Lockerbie in December 1988, to the point where the atrocity was laid
firmly at the door
of Libya. As a result Libya came under
further significant international pressure to cut its support for terrorists
including the Provisional IRA and of course to surrender the accused for
trial.”

31. While supporters of Mr Megrahi have
frequently alleged the non-disclosure of key evidence MI5’s “major
role in the investigation” is completely outside the public domain.
Save for Mrs Rimington's boast (and Mr Marquise's book!) there is little or no evidence MI5 played any
role at all. Because it was kept largely under wraps doesn't mean it didn't happen. If she wasn’t inventing this “major
role” what part did MI5 actually play?
MI5 are not detectives or dispassionate seekers after the truth but are quite often in the business of politically motivated deceit. Are MI5 subject to the Police & Criminal Evidence Act or indeed
the normal rules of disclosure?

32. What
indeed could MI5, the British Domestic Security Service bring to
the party? While the bomb exploded over
UK sovereign territory the bombing was supposedly planned overseas, the bomb
itself supposedly arriving at Heathrow from Frankfurt having begun its journey
in Malta.

33. As outlined in
my article “Lockerbie – Criminal Justice or War By Other Means?” the British effort to contain and defeat the
IRA suffered an enormous blow when in October 1987 French custom officers
intercepted the trawler Eksund carrying 150 tons of weapons which were being
transported from Libya and destined for
the Irish Republic. It transpired that
this was the fifth (and by far the largest) such shipment. (The seizure of the Eksund was followed days later by one of the IRA's most notorious atrocities the Iniskillin massacre.)

34. The first
shipment of ten tons of weapons had landed in August 1985 eight months before
the bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi.
The later shipments contradicted Mrs Thatcher’s claim in her memoirs The
Downing Street Years that the bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi “led to a marked reduction in Libyan
sponsored terrorism for years to come”. The Libyan response to the bombing might have been seen as entirely predictable. Mrs Thatcher had to claim that the ineffectual bombing (planned by the NSC's "crazy gang" ) had been an unqualified success. Had she claimed Lockerbie was the consequence of Britain's support for the US adventure people may then have posed the obvious question.

35. One consequence of
enormous significance for the Lockerbie case was that MI5 took over
responsibility for Malta from MI6. MI5 had no particular interest in Malta save for its proximity and relationship with
Libya and this fact may be central for understanding the creation of the "Libyan Solution" to Lockerbie.

36. Marquise recounts that in June 1991 he “had
lunch with the MI5 representative at the British Embassy in Washington Eliza
Manningham-Buller. We often discussed
Lockerbie and I had found her to be open and forthright. (Essential qualities to get to the top of MI5!) I voiced my concerns about the Lord Advocate
and his “deadline”. She
did not believe Whitehall would allow (!) the Scottish prosecutor to set an
artificial deadline. She assured the
criminal investigation would be able to run its course. While this was only one opinion, it was good
to hear, at least informally,that others in the United Kingdom would not let
“deadlines” get in the way of completing our work.” Was Mrs Manningham-Buller actually being "open and forthright" or just using her charm on Marquise to achieve her objectives. (There is an alternative to waterboarding!)

37. While Mr Marquise describes Mrs Manningham-Buller as
the MI5 representative at the British Embassy, according to MI5’s own website
she “led
the section responsible for International Counter-terrorism at the time when
its work was dominated by the Lockerbie investigation. She was later posted to Washington as a
senior liaison with the US intelligence community. Her posting coincided with
the first Gulf War. On her return to the UK in 1992 she led a newly formed Irish
Counter-Terrorism section. This was
formed in response to the Government’s decision to make the SecurityService in
charge of intelligence work against Irish terrorism on the British mainland.” The Lockerbie investigation was not a hiatus for Mrs Manningham-Buller from her career in combatting the IRA. It was central to it and the indictments were her achievement.

38. At page 241 Marquise wrote “Intelligence
and police agencies have a common goal.
It is to help protect their country from crime and other threats.” The first part is debatable or just wrong but did the creation of a false “Libyan solution” to the Lockerbie
case further this aim better than an objective and competent investigation?
Did it not essentially serve MI5's
central objective of disarming the IRA and exacting revenge on Gaddafi?
Was Mrs Rimington answering her own question “Security and
Democrracy is there a conflict?” There would certainly seem to be a conflict with the rule of law

39. One of the four demands made of Libya subsequent to
the imposition of UN sections was that Libya "cease all support and aid the Irish Republican Army and provide the British Government with all information in regard to that relation" . These demands went far beyond handing over the Lockerbie suspects for trial.

Tony Gauci and Megrahi's alias "Abdusamad".

40. On February 15th 1990 Marquise had phoned SIO Henderson who told him the Scots were having a celebratory drink in his office because ”Gauci picked Megrahi out of the lineup and identified him as the person who purchased the clothing.” (This wasn't a line-up but a photo ID).

41. In fact as Marquise frankly explains Gauci had done no such thing quoting Gauci that it was “over two years since the clothing was purchased and I have been shown many photographs. Of all the pictures I have been shown the one of (Megrahi) most resembled the person who had bought the clothing in my shop. However the man would have to have been a few years older.”

42. Indeed at page 61 Marquise notes a remarkable similarity between the artist’s impression and another Libyan “Al-Nayli” one of the two Libyans arrested in Senegal allegedly in possession of explosives and MST-13 timers (A man David Leppard claims Cannistraro identified as the initial suspect in ths case.) Yet according to Marquise “The identification was a turning point in the investigation”. It may well have been but having wrongly “eliminated” Heathrow the Police were now moulding the evidence to fit a theory that was absolutely untrue.

43. Marquise knew this wasn’t a real identification and could see for himself the chasm between Megrahi’s photograph and the earlier FBI artist’s sketch of the person described by Gauci. He also had no doubt of the date of purchase was the 7th December although other evidence indicated the purchase was made on the 23rd November (when Megrahi was not on Malta) or the 7 December being the two days on which Paul Gauci (allegedly) left work to watch a football match on TV. There was no till roll, receipt or ROC (record of charge) to accurately date the purchase and Paul Gauci was well paid for his evidence. Was the clothing actually purchased before the bombing at all or were they part of a trail of sweeties leading the investigators by the nose to Malta?

44.

Marquise also had no doubt that the printout of Bogomira Erac demonstrated that a “rogue suitcase” had been transferred from flight KM180 to flight PA103A on the 21/12/88 although there was little or no evidence that one actually was and none that this item was a brown Samsonite suitcase.

45. Following a tip-off from the NSA that Megrahi had an alias Abdulsamad Marquise had a long struggle to prove Megrahi and Abusamad were one and the same. He was of course convinced of Megrahi’s guilt when he found evidence that "Abusamad" visited Malta on the 20/12/88 leaving for Triipoli the following day “only thirty minutes after the suitcase left Malta on KM180.” (Which is hadn't!) It seems apparent from the captioned CIA cable that Megrahi was under surveillance on his arrival in Malta on the 7th December 1988 and the detail of Fhimah assisting Megrahi through immigration is similar to Giaka's claim. Was the arrival of Megrahi @Abusamad in Malta on the 20/12/88 actually a trigger for events elsewhere?

46. In an article for The Times of the 20/12/14 "Lockerbie Conspiracy Theory is Dismissed" the former Editor of the Sunday Times' risible "Hitler Diaries" Magnus Linklater, reported on a purported, and indeed perhaps fictional " review" of the Lockerbie conviction by the Lord Advocate. This article claimed that if the MST-13 timer was a fake it would have had to have been planted (presumably at Tundergarth) within 23 days of the bombing and that Megrahi was "unknown" at that time. Above is a cable of the 22/12/88 identifying him as an ESO officer. The "intelligence services" obviously knew of him. Indeed he may have been involved in the Libyan operation to arm the IRA. As he was under surveillance at the airport it would seem likely he was under surveillance throughout his trip during which he supposedly bought the Malta clothing! Perhaps the ostentatious purchase of the clothing was really made on the 7/12/88 - but not by Megrahi. (When and by whom the fragment of MST-13 timer was created is not known).

47. As Marquise conceded (page 228) “the case had been built on a string of circumstances.” Marquise himself sometimes questioned if the evidence was real. Page 113 - “I often questioned the evidence and had numerous discussions with Henderson on the issue. We wondered if an intelligence agency could have planted evidence to lead us to where we had come in the investigation. However after knowing what we had been through to have gotten this far, it did not seem possible the evidence could have been planted. However, we concluded that if an intelligence agent or agency wanted to “frame” someone for the bombing they would have made the path to the evidence easier to navigate.” (Not necessarily if the "deadline" for bringing indictments was actually a target date.)

48. However as Marquise relates in relation to the MST-13 timer the Scottish Police made extensive world-wide enquiries over many months to establish its provenance. (Although this may have simply obscured the real date when it was introduced into the chain of evidence.) After the FBI’s Tom Thurman was supplied with an photograph of the exhibit he identified it within two days by showing it to the CIA yet Marquise writes “It was inconceivable they would have allowed so much time to pass before the chip was identified”. But as Marquise admits there was a timetable to which he was not privy.

Majid Giaka

49. The second and key area of the FBI's involvement in
the Lockerbie case concerns the recruitment of the defector Majid
Giaka as a key “witness” in ths case.

50. I was
surprised by how late in the day Majid Giaka emerged as a witness. On May 18th 1991 Marquise's boss
Robert Mueller told him he needed at least one “insider” witness. In early July (1991) the CIA located their
former informant Giaka in Libya. Giaka
travelled to Tunisia then Malta. (It is not clear where his pregnant wife, a Maltese resided.) Giaka was initially interviewed
upon a US military vessel and then transported to the US by covert means where
he was interviewed by the FBI between Sunday 21st July 1991 and Thursday August
1st 1991.

51. Giaka,
besides outlining the structure of the JSO (in which he may have exaggerated
his own status) and identifying Megrahi
as a JSO officer (which he almost certainly was) made three key
allegations. Firstly he claimed that in
June 1986 weeks after the US bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi, a senior JSO
officer had asked Giaka “a low level member of the JSO” about
the feasibility of sending (presumably smuggling) a suitcase to Great Britain on board a British
plane. At page 192 this project is
amended to inquire if it was possible to get a bag on a plane bound for the UK
or the USA (there being no direct route to the USA). Giaka learned that this was possible, although supposedly he did not grasp this was a plan to smuggle a bomb, and
sent a report through Megrahi to this senior official. Giaka did not mention this project to his
CIA handlers.

52. Of interest Marquise had
written (page 49) “The airline guide for December 1988
recommended that if someone wanted to go to New York from there (Malta) the
routing would be Air Malta (KM) Flight 180 from Valetta to Frankfurt, transfer
to Pan Am flight 103A to London and then Pan Am Flight 103 to New York.” Did this guide actually
exist? Obviously rather than change at Frankfurt
there were numerous Air Malta and British Airways direct flights to Heathrow. (Further you could of course fly from Malta
to Rome or Paris or Schipol for a connection to the US.) No legitimate luggage was transferred from
KM180 to PA103A on the 21/12/88 for the simple reason that this wasn’t the way
to get to London from Malta!

53. The method by which
Giaka thought a bag could be smuggled onto a plane is a matter of some interest
as how the “rogue suitcase” was smuggled onto KM180 was never established and
proved to be a central shortcoming in the prosecution case. Giaka claimed to have sent his report through
Magrahi. What was Giaka's suppposed plan?

54. The second central allegation (page 138) was that at
the LAA office at Luqa Fhimah showed Giaka two boxes of brown lumpy things which Fhimah told him was
8 kilos of TNT. Fhimah told Giaka he had got it from Megrahi. According to Marquise Giaka later identified
a photograph of Semtex!

55. The third allegation was more complex. For reasons unstated Giaka had gone to Luqa
Airport sometime in October, November or December 1988 where he saw Megrahi
arrive with Fhimah. According to Giaka
Fhimah took a large brown hard-sided suitcase off the luggage carousel and took
it through customs. (How Giaka was able
to observe this was a question neither the FBI nor the defence teams at Zeist
asked him.) Giaka then observed the two
men getting into Fhimah’s car. As Fhimah
had only bought the car on the 14th December 1988 Giaka must have
observed the two men arriving on the 20th December 1988.

56. At page 152 Marquise discusses a meeting he had been
at at MI5 HQ attended by the CIA. (9th September 1991?) “We
discussed what Giaka furnished during his lengthy interview. The CIA and BSS (MI5) agreed that Giaka could
answer most of the intelligence questions and
the evidentiary things he had provided could be corroborated by others.” How?

57.

Henderson (who came to Washington to observe Giaka’s
interview, was initially sceptical of Giaka asking (Page 139) “Was
Giaka involved in the bombing? Was he sent to USA by Libyans to find out what
we knew?” These were pertinent
questions. Marquise wrote that “Giaka would not be prosecuted so long as we
found no evidence he had been involved in the attack.” (He had claimed to have submitted a plan to smuggle a suitcase onto a plane bound for the USA!)

58. Marquise
reveals that following his own lengthy interview the principal of MEBO Edwin
Bollier was subjected to a polygraph test which he passed. Did the FBI think Giaka’s unlikely story of
being asked to submit a report on smuggling a suitcase onto a plane, seeing
explosives at the LAA office or observing Fhimah and Megrahi with a large brown
Samsonite suitcase ought to be tested with a polygraph test? Of course not. As will be seen Marquise was working to a
deadline and he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

59.

While Maquise asserts “that no one in the FBI or DoJ believed, nor had we seen any evidence
he would lie or fail to tell the truth” they made no attempt to test
this and were already satisfied as to what “the truth” was. Giaka's role was simply to confirm this theory. Having travelled to the US Giaka had already
burned his bridges and had every reason to embellish his account He hated Gaddafi and wanted to settle in the
USA. He was kept in protective custody
until the trial. Marquise does not say
what happened to Giaka and his family after the trial. Unlike Paul and Tony Gauci they were not paid a "reward for justice". Giaka's memoirs would have been of great
interest yet not a peep has been heard from Giaka since he gave evidence at
Camp Zeist. Where is he now? Was he perhaps subjected to "extraordinary rendition" as a suspected Libyan plant?

60.

Very early in the book Marquise wrote “The information we would eventually provide
to the DoJ, and later to the public, would be based on fact and not
speculation. It had to be able to stand
the scrutiny of a court.” Well
it didn't.

61.

As it transpired with the release of the CIA cables
detailing Giaka’s performance as a CIA informant and his failure to mention to
the CIA any of the key allegations that the FBI so willingly swallowed even the
Camp Zeist tribunal (which bent over backwards to accept the remainder of the
prosecutions dubious assertions) dismissed Giaka’s evidence stating (Scotbom
page 234) “We are unable to accept
Abdul Majid as a credible and reliable witness on any matter except his
description of the JSO and the personnel involved there.” Their
Lordships felt Giaka had embellished his evidence of a simple sighting at the
Airport (if he was even there!) with the ludicrous detail of seeing Fhimah take
a particular suitcase off the carousel.

62. At page 146 Marquise had noted the comment of a DoJ
official that “without Giaka the case
was weak at best.” The quite
astonishing thing is that even without Giaka’s “evidence” (and the absence of
any evidence as to how the primary suitcase was introduced at Malta) their
Lordships still managed to convict Megrahi, apparently on the dubious
identification of Gauci (and the acceptance of the assertion, again unsupported by evidence, that Gauci had sold his "Libyan" customer a grey man's Slalom shirt), together with an acceptance, (unsupported by the evidence), that the clothing was purchased on the 7th December 1988 together with the forensic evidence of RARDE (apparently fabricated) that claimed that key exhibits were found within this shirt.

63.

Perhaps Their Lordships were determined to convict if
they possibly could (persons purportedly acting in Megrahi’s interests having him tried without a Jury in a judicial experiment in which he was precluded from giving evidence!) so that
never again would defendants in a Scottish Criminal case negotiate the form of
tribunal before which they would deign to appear. The verdict may have been on "Camp Zeist".

64. Perhaps the most disgraceful episode related by Marquise concerned a briefing given by himself and Henderson to the Deputy Maltese PM Guido DeMarco on the 10th October 1988 in Malta. Marquise wrote without a trace of irony or self-awareness that "he didn't was to lie or be evasive" in telling DeMarco that "the bomb had definitely originated in Malta" transforming a dubious theory into fact. They also told De Marco the two Libyan suspects kept explosives in Malta and had brought a large hard-sided suitcase into Malta. All this was based on Marquise's credulous acceptance of the claims of Giaka although Marquise lied to De Marco that this was based on CIA intelligence.

Rendition
and the “Deadline” :

65. Was the object of the indictment of the
two Libyan suspects (in loco parentis Mo’ammar
Gaddafi and the Libyan State) to bring the two defendants to trial but
to transform unilateral US sanctions against Libya into UN sanctions with the objective
of regime change?. Presumably Mr
Marquise thought he was involved in a straight-forward Criminal investigation,
with the object of finding out who actually planned and carried out the bombing and proving it in court. However his book provides a great deal of
evidence to support the view that sanctions were not just a means of compelling Libya to surrender the two suspects but the objective of the indictments. It was win-win. Indeed in
announcing the Indictment on the 14th November 1991 US Attorney
General William Barr stated “this
investigation is continuing and will be pursued unrelentingly until all
responsible are brought to justice”. Former FBI Director Robert Mueller and the Lord Advocate were still making the same claims 22 years later!

66. From early summer 1991 Marquise was concerned at the prospect of an arbitrary deadline for the completion of the investigation being imposed. At first he heard it from the Scots. His own superiors (and others) assure him
that there is no deadline yet it slowly dawns on him that there is a deadline
and he doesn’t understand why. The prospect of a deadline arose long before Giaka is recruited as a “witness” and without Giaka the FBI investigation has achieved nothing.

67.

Of a meeting on
April 4th 1991 he writes “It
seemed officials in Scotland had developed a timeline for the end of the
investigation” and “I had not been
privy to discussions between the White House and DoJ and wondered if they too
had developed an end line.”“On June 20th 1991 Mueller, Stephens (DoJ official) and Peter Fraser, the Lord Advocate met to
discuss the investigation. Investigators
were not invited but I learned they came up with a “charging” date of November
15th - 1991 Henderson and I continued to be troubled by the “end
line” the date set by the Lord Advocate to conclude the investigation. We believed we might not be finished by
November 15 and thought an artificial dealine was one which would put undue
pressure on us. That could lead to
shortcuts taken and mistakes made.” On
July 10th “Henderson asked for
support in asking the prosecutors on both sides of the Atlantic not to set a
deadline for the announcement of the indictment.”

68. On August 19th 1991 the Lord Advocate met with the Prime Minister (John Major) "and they had discussed deadlines in the investigation." In June 1996 PM Major claimed to the House of Commons that the investigation was "open" and called for persons with relevant information to "come forward." It transpired the investigation was "open" only if you agreed with the official version of events notably the conclusion of the Fatal Accident Inquiry that the primary suitcase arrived at Heathrow unaccompanied on flight PA103A, a conclusion based on no evidence whatsoever simply the submission of the then Lord Advocate's Deputy, one Andrew Hardie QC.

69. Referring to a meeting with MI5 in London on Monday 9th
September 1991 "Henderson believed the
indictments would be announced on a date from November 12-19 1991. He admitted the final police report would not
be done by then nor would the RARDE report.” -
“The deadline which we thought to have been set by the Lord Advocate was
allegedly being advocated by Mueller and, ostensibly, the US Government.” “I also learned FBI Director Sessions had met
with the Director General of the BSS in
Canada just two months before. It was another example of information not being passed down the line.”

70. There were a number of discussions about the rendition of one or both of the suspects. At page 118 he wrote about a discussion of the possibility of a "snatch" of either suspect should they venture outside Libya. (In fact Megrahi's co-accused Fhimah was living in pro-Western Tunisia as an LAA employee.) But as Marquise frankly admitted (page 156) "No one wanted to try Fhimah alone, without Megrahi."

The
Federal Grand Jury

71. While
Giaka’s dubious claims were dismissed by the panel of Judges at Camp Zeist they
were central to the evidence presented to a US Federal Grand Jury. This met between the 25th
September and the 13th November 1991 handing down the Indictment the day before
it was announced to the world.

72. Here the
Grand Jury heard unchallenged Giaka’s account of being commissioned to write a
report on smuggling a suitcase onto an aircraft, the storing of Semtex at the
LAA office and of seeing Fhimah and Megrahi on the eve of the bombing with a
Brown Samsonite suitcase. There were no
other eyewitnesses although. “The
witnesses would include FBI agents who would summarize what we had uncovered,
to include potential testimony by both Bollier and Gauci.” (Presumably Gauci’s identification would have
been emphatic, the date of purchase undoubtedly the 7th December and
there would be no doubt that a “rogue
suitcase” was smuggled onto KM180 and transferred at Frankfurt to PA103A.) It was Marquise who presented a lot of this evidence. Did he present the evidence of RARDE in advance of their actual report?

73. The patriotic Grand Jury members did their duty and returned an Indictment. There was no real plan to bring the suspects to trial and the Montreal Treaty was ignored but the indictments were all that were required in order to purport that a trial was the objective and start the process of imposing UN sanctions. Was there any other point to announcing these twin indictments on both sides on the Atlantic? Marquise notes that the Lord Advocate Lord Peter Fraser proposed to personally lead the prosecution in Edinburgh. How he thought to get the defendants to Edinburgh (if he thought of it at all) is not mentioned. Demands made by the West seemed to be intended to prevent a trial.

74. This seems to have been the end of Marquise's active involvement in the Lockerbie case save for occasionally reassuring Giaka that he was a wanted and valued resource. Ironically Marquise was then appointed to be the Agent in charge of the FBI's Oklahoma City office which in April 1995 had suffered from another terrorist attack arising from and intimately related to the Amercian political scandals known (inaccurately) as "Iran-Contra".

Payment of Witnesses

75. Marquise has little to say about the payment of witnesses or indeed who was paid save that the reward, which offered up to four million dollars (page 114) for information leading to the Lockerbie bombing.(sic) “However one thing was abundantly clear,
money was and is not a motivating factor.”
How was this “abundantly clear" and to who? He continued that "We believed thousands
of useless pieces of information would be sent to the task force, overwhelming
us. In reality, little credible
information was ever received." Of course the task force had a particular definition of "credible". - "After the indictment
was announced FBI field offices and the police in Scotland were deluged by individuals
who had information about the bombing or the two suspects who had been
indicted. None of the tips ever turned
out to be of value.” (Doesn’t that tell you something?).

FBI Told of Heathrow Origin:

76. On the 1st June 1996 the author wrote to the US Ambassador to the Court of St James pointing out the blindingly obvious that the Police had made a "colossal blunder" in eliminating Heathrow as the airport at which the primary suitcase was introduced.

77. This was not the FBI's blunder and as most of the victims were US citizens I thought it possible (but unlikely) the FBI might actuallyconduct an objective investigation. I thought it may be useful to document they had been told that the Scottish Police had got it wrong from the start.

78. I was surprised to receive a very courteous response from Assistant Legal attaché Robert A. Patton (an FBI officer) indicating the FBI would "respond to you directly concerning your information". Of course I heard nothing further not because it was untrue but because it was absolutely true. "Scotbom" explains perfectly why they did not respond. They had their indictment and the US Government had their sanctions. There was no prospect of a trial so there was no upside to an objective investigation.

79. I did incidentally claim the advertised reward and why not? (And continue to claim it). I was merely pointing out where an objective investigation had been abandoned.

Conclusion:

80. It is a long time since Mrs.Rimington boasted that "the service played a major role in the investigation." Nobody picked up on this and at Camp Zeist nobody senior in the actual investigation was called to give evidence. I did suggest to the defence team that Mrs Rimington be summonsed to explain her boast.

81. Richard Marquise's book has confirmed MI5 did play a major role in the investigation although the detail of what role they played is outwith the public domain and was not disclosed to the defence.

While the British Government outsourced the Lockerbie case to the (pre-devolution) Scottish authorities it does seem curious that the head of the FBI's investigation was in frequent contact with and attended meetings at MI5 Headquarters (accompanied by the Scottish Senior Investigating Officer Stewart Henderson.)

82. The central point is that the British Security Service (MI5) is not a law-enforcement agency. They have their own agenda and objectives.

83. The bombing of flight PA103 was almost certainly quid pro quo retaliation for the incompetence of Captain Will Rogers in his attack on Iranair flight 655 (the "Vincennes Incident"). For quite obvious reasons it was expedient to pretend retaliation had not occurred and to blame somebody else. Libya was an ideal choice. The CIA had had a thirty year campaign to overthrow Gaddafi, finally succeeding in 2011. While Lockerbie was supposedly just another count on Gaddafi's rap sheet it was in actuality part of the campaign to overthrow him.

84. The CIA's long-term objective coincided exactly with MI5's No.1 overwhelming priority - the disarming and the defeat of the Provisional Irish Republican Army - the real and vital threat to the security of the British State. In this they had the 100% support of the British Government and successive British Prime Ministers. While the British Government exerted enormous pressure on the PIRA it was probably the events of "9/11" that made that made the IRA's campaign obsolete.

85. In a Benthamite sense the framing of Megrahi (as a substitute for Gaddafi) might be regarded as a "good thing". It had little to do with the actual bombing of flight PA103 but part of the genius of the "Libyan solution" was that the relatives were generously compensated giving them a financial interest in the official version of events.

86. I take the view that the Western authorities were prepared to accept the destruction of a single airliner as retaliation for the Vincennes Incident (as opposed to the destruction of several planes and the further escalation of the crisis.) Were they aware in advance that flight PA103 of the 21/12/88 was targeted for destruction? It seems likely that a CIA "asset" built the bomb. I am sure most people would assume that if the authorities became aware of a plan to bomb a particular aircraft they would do all in their power to prevent such a thing - but then some other plane or planes would be attacked. The central question is whether acceptance became collusion and even management.